Acousto-optic reflection-active media have an optical reflectivity which changes with changes in acoustic energy intensity interacting with the media and form images of defects in samples when the defects reflect acoustic energy differently from known acoustically reflecting parts of the samples.
Acousto-optic reflection-active media were not expected. This activity is surprising because incident acoustic energy enters the media along with reflected acoustic energy. It was expected that the effect of incident acoustic energy interacting with the media would overwhelm the effect of reflected acoustic energy interacting with the medium. Acousto-optic reflection-active media have an optical reflectivity which changes with changes in reflected acoustic energy intensity interacting with the media even though incident acoustic energy is also interacting with the mediaxe2x80x94which thus defines acousto-optic reflection-active media.
The product provides progress over prior art for example shown by Sandhu in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,049,411 and 5,796,003 and by the art disclosed there.